Alfred Jarry Quotes & Sayings

We believe ... that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts. — Alfred Jarry

I am dying. Please ... bring me a toothpick. — Alfred Jarry

God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. — Alfred Jarry

The work of art is a stuffed crocodile. — Alfred Jarry

Pataphysics will be, above all, the science of the particular, despite the common opinion that the only science is that of the general. Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one; or, less ambitiously, will describe a universe which can be - and perhaps should be - envisaged in the place of the traditional one. — Alfred Jarry

There are only hallucinations, or perceptions, and that there are neither nights nor days ... and that life is continuous; yet that one would never be aware of its continuity, nor even that life exists without these pendulum movements; and life is primarily verified by the beating of the heart — Alfred Jarry

And he had to have freedom-not even that, just to read and sleep in peace, without a uniform-sooner still. — Alfred Jarry

It is because the public are a mass inert, obtuse, and passive that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear-like grunts where they are and also where they stand. They are pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against intelligence. — Alfred Jarry

The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character. — Alfred Jarry

It is conventional to call 'monster' any blending of dissonant elements. I call 'monster' every original inexhaustible beauty. — Alfred Jarry

We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings. — Alfred Jarry

It is one of the great joys of home ownership to fire a pistol in one's own bedroom — Alfred Jarry

To be weird! That is my goal! — Alfred Jarry

Dawn was breaking, like the light from another world. — Alfred Jarry

The military hospital is the most cheerful of militaty buildings because there are so few uniforms inside. — Alfred Jarry

God is the shortest distance from zero to infinity. — Alfred Jarry

One can show one's contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one's life a poem of incoherence and absurdity. — Alfred Jarry

Anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water, that terrible poison, so corrosive that out of all substances it has been chosen for washing and scouring, and a drop of water added to a clear liquid like Absinthe, muddles it. — Alfred Jarry

You're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, Madam, is it because we have company? — Alfred Jarry

Blind and unwavering undisciplined at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men. — Alfred Jarry

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots. — Alfred Jarry

Papa Ubu: Captain Bordure, I've decided to make you Duke of Lithuania. — Alfred Jarry

I intended that when the curtain went up the scene should confront the public like the exaggerating mirror in the stories of Madame Leprince de Beaumont, in which the depraved saw themselves with dragons' bodies, or bulls' horns, or whatever corresponded to their particular vice. It is not surprising that the public should have been aghast at the sight of its other self, which it had never before been shown completely. This ignoble other-self, as Monsieur Catulle Mendes has excellently said, is composed "of eternal human imbecility, eternal lust, eternal gluttony, the vileness of instinct magnified into tyranny; of the sense of decency, the virtues, the patriotism & the ideals peculiar to those who have just eaten their fill." Really, these are hardly the constituents for an amusing play, & the masks demonstrate that the comedy must at the most be the macabre comedy of an English clown, or of a Dance of Death. — Alfred Jarry

JARRY: (To audience) As to the action which is about to begin, it takes place in Poland - that is to say, nowhere. — Alfred Jarry

Duration is the transformation of a succession into a reversion. In other words: THE BECOMING OF A MEMORY. — Alfred Jarry

Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music as an excuse for its ovations. — Alfred Jarry

Laughter is born out of the discovery of the contradictory. — Alfred Jarry

Papa Ubu: Yes, gentlemen, but however beautiful it may be, it can't compare with Poland. Because if there weren't any Poland, there wouldn't be any Poles! — Alfred Jarry

Dieu est le point tangent de ze ro et de l'infini. God is the tangential point of zero and the infinite. — Alfred Jarry

Talking about things that are understandable only weighs down the mind. — Alfred Jarry

That's a beautiful speech, but nobody's listening. Let's go. — Alfred Jarry

To keep up even a worthwhile tradition means vitiating the idea behind it which must necessarily be in a constant state of evolution: it is mad to try to express new feelings in a mummified form. — Alfred Jarry